Post #202

🇹🇩Chad: Competition Without Competitors 🌐The Chinese are boasting of a whole new oil frontier that has opened up for them in Chad, with oil fields to expand, refineries to build and very few rivals left. 🔸 Chad has announced plans to double output from about 150,000 barrels a day and is leaning on China and the UAE to revive its oil industry, with Chinese CNPC planning to expand existing operations and build the country's second refinery, in addition to the existing Djermaya plant near N’Djamena. ⏩Over the past fifteen years Chad has been scaring off its Western partners by endless reviews of taxes, contracts and control. From a consortium of Exxon, Chevron and Petronas, that used to make up the axis of Chad's oil industry in the 2010s, only Britain’s Savannah Energy remained by 2023, when its assets were nationalized. 🔸In contrast, Chinese actors have been willing to stay in this environment. CNPC built a refinery and pipelines with Chinese state bank loans, while CEFC China Energy even allegedly arranged a $2 million bribe for the then President Idriss Déby in return for oil rights. 🔸 In contrast to some of its neighbours, Chad has been utilizing "resource nationalism"-like considerations as an instrument for elites enrichment. As a result, it now risks becoming dependent exclusively on the very partner whose record in the country and across the continent includes serious pollution cases, conflicts with local employees and numerous bribery scandals. Devils Below